THE ANTI-NETWORK

ANNALS OF THE MEDIA about C-SPAN, which offers gavel-to-gavel coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Tells about the cable network, (full name: Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network) which was started fifteen years ago by Brian Lamb. No other network, perhaps, has done so little to call attention to itself. And yet, C-SPAN is in 60 million homes; millions of Americans watch it regularly (its known fans include Bill Clinton, Mario Cuomo, Rush Limbaugh, and Barbra Streisand). Tells about Lamb, who is the chairman of C-SPAN. Tells about Lamb's efforts to start the cable network. Talk began to get serious after Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., became House speaker in 1977. C-SPAN began transmitting on Mar. 19, 1979. For the first seven months, the network, using the Madison Square Garden Network transponder, showed the House and nothing else, and when the business of the House reached into the evening C-SPAN got summarily bumped by MSG. C-SPAN was widely praised for its coverage of the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Tells about coverage of two speeches, one at the Democratic Convention and one at the Republican Convention, on AIDS, which included cut-aways to the audience. On C-SPAN, Ralph Nader said, "You can talk in sentences and paragraphs, back and forth... You can actually speak the language." Describes the other programming that C-SPAN now offers. C-SPAN is a nonprofit service that gets its financing in fees from cable systems around the country. Mentions Ross Perot's call for an "electronic town hall" in which the President would act as a sort of m.c. It is a vision that has struck some commentators as an invitation to high-tech demagoguery. Meanwhile, unnoticed by Perot or his critics, a prototype of the electronic town hall has already arrived, and it is not so scary.